The Princess and the Cat
by Attharun
Summary: A conversation in the park between Athrun Zala and the princess of Orb, a year after the second war. No, not THAT princess of Orb, but her eight year old cousin. This should be fun. Oneshot, unfortunately.


Disclaimer: Nope. Gundam Seed is not mine, I tell you.

a/n: You could say I've temporarily resurrected from the dead or something like that. LOL. Well, just wanted to type up something to get myself in the holiday mood, which isn't really working, but hey. Anyway, hope you guys like it. Though I personally think the title of this story kinda... er... sucks.

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**The Princess and the Cat**

"Uh, excuse me."

A blue-haired individual looked up from his laptop screen. There was a child, looking to be about eight years of age, standing in front of him.

The man straightened his posture. "Yes?" he said, putting the notebook to 'sleep' and giving the little girl his full attention.

"I was wondering if you could help me," she told him, pouting her lips and giving the man her best innocent look. "Rudolf's stuck in a tree."

"Rudolf?" The older person tried his best not to give away his skepticism, while an image of a red-nosed reindeer stuck on top of a tree played in his mind.

"Yes, Rudolf. My cat."

All thoughts of reindeer were dispelled by the statement. "Oh, your cat. Right. Well, we shouldn't waste any time, then." He rose from the park bench he had been sitting on and tucked his laptop under his arm.

The girl looked at him with her wide blue eyes. "You're gonna help me then, Mr. Athrun?"

Athrun was taken aback when he heard his name. He blinked once. "How do you know?" he asked gently. He did not want to intimidate the girl; he had done enough of that during the war before, and he had made not a few young soldiers pee in their uniforms.

"Well, you were always on TV back then. You were with ZAFT, right? And then everyone said you were dead, but you showed up in Lacus Clyne's team. You were on the bad side, but you became good in the end." This was said very casually, as if she had just seen the end of a Power Rangers series, and the man she was talking to was the actor who played the white ranger - the one who often played traitor and realized the error of his ways much later into the story.

Athrun had to smile. "That was a year ago, kid. Now, there is no bad side." He eyed the child intently. "You haven't told me your name."

"You'll save Rudolf if I tell you?"

"I'd get him down the tree even if you don't."

"Oh."

He ruffled her hair a little. "Hey, you're blonde," he remarked. Earlier he had thought it was brown, but her long wavy tresses were dirty-blonde. Yet blonde nonetheless.

And it was easy to deduce who was brought to mind when he noticed this fact.

"No, I'm not blonde, I'm Ariana," the girl said impatiently, the pout reappearing on her face.

"Well, I guess you just answered my question, Ariana. Thank you."

Ariana's pout immediately disappeared, only to be replace by a bright smile. "You're welcome!"

"I bet I'll be more welcome if I get Rudolf off the tree." Athrun walked briskly to a tall oak tree in the middle of the park, from which he had been hearing meows since he and Ariana started talking.

The girl fell into step beside him. "Can I ask you something, Mr. Athrun?"

"Sure."

"What happened with you and the repreten... repsetren..." her facial features contorted as she tried to get the word out correctly.

Athrun decided not to let her struggle any more than she already did. "Representative?" he offered.

"Yes, what you said," Ariana replied, glad she was not faced with too much difficulty. (Ah, the trivial adversities of childhood.)

"Which representative are you talking about?" the nineteen year-old asked, though he knew perfectly well where the conversation was going.

"The one with the blonde hair. She was your girlfriend, wasn't she?"

_This kid sure knows a lot for a... well, a kid,_ he thought. _But then again, _I _know a lot more than the average teenager._

He allowed himself to nod. "Well, she loves this country a lot, Ariana, and everything in it. But I'm not from Orb. So she doesn't love me."

It was far from being a sufficient explanation. But let's face it: If Athrun told the girl that Cagalli had had to give him up to secure the peace of Orb and its citizens, she would probably have given him a blank look and not understand a word.

And yet that same expression was on Ariana's face right then. "Really?"

"Yep."

"That's not what she told me."

For the second time, the girl surprised Athrun with her words. "What do you mean? You've spoken with Cagalli?"

The grin reappeared on her lips. "Of course. We talk all the time. At least, we do after all those meetings she goes to everyday."

"Oh, really?" the teen said, though not out of sarcasm. A moment later, realization dawned on him. "Wait, you're not related to her, are you?"

"I'm her cousin."

Athrun could not help but observe her head-to-foot once more. _She doesn't seem anything like royalty,_ he mused. _But Cagalli didn't seem like royalty when I first saw her, anyhow._

Ariana did a formal bow, grasping the sides of her sundress with her little hands. "I am Princess Ariana Reena Attha."

_Okay, _now _she seems to be very authentic royalty, _Athrun said mentally. He took a step backward and gave the girl a ZAFT salute, a little smile on his lips.

"And I'm Athrun Zala, an ex-ZAFT soldier."

The pleasant laughter ringing in his ears made him widen his smile. _She's Cagalli's cousin, all right. Same laugh._

"I can take you to her," Ariana said out of the blue. Her laughter had subsided.

The emotions Athrun had been suppressing for so long seemed ready to overpower him at last. After he had parted ways with Cagalli a year ago, he had not felt much conviction for anything anymore. And the fact that his best friend Kira Yamato was very much content with his life with Lacus Clyne in Reverend Malchio's orphanage made Patrick Zala's son rueful of his fate. So rueful, in fact, that he decided to continue his studies, not at PLANT like Yzak and Dearka, but in Onogoro, thinking that he could still be near the girl he loved, if only figuratively.

"I can't, Ariana, I have a class in thirty minutes."

"But she wants to see you now, Mr. Athrun," the girl said, sounding very much like Cagalli herself when she attempted to convince him to do something. "And it's not all the time she goes through the trouble of inviting people to the palace."

_She wants to see you now_,the words echoed in his head.

As it turned out, his heart triumphed over his mind. He took a deep breath. "Okay, Ariana. I accept the invitation."

"Great! I knew you would."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because you offered to save my cat who, by the way, is still stuck on the tree," Ariana told him a matter-of-factly.

Athrun could only give her a wry smile. "I think we're gonna get along just as well as me and Cagalli did before."

"But she told me that you two never got along."

"My point exactly."

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a/n: Ariana doesn't sound much like a kid, huh? Or maybe that's just me. Well, tell me what you guys think, if I should make this "resurrection" permanent or just go back to my grave or whatnot. LOL again. See yaz when I see yaz, then.

Edit: And no, I don't know much about Power Rangers, so the white ranger thing was a wild guess. Very, very wild.


End file.
